


I might do this to myself (One Love)

by mandsangelfox



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, M/M, Michael is an unreliable narrator, Michael's sense of self loathing should have its own character tag, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 22:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19385857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandsangelfox/pseuds/mandsangelfox
Summary: There’s a saying about how it’s impossible to fit the world in your hands, but Michael Guerin begs to differ because he manages just fine when it comes to Alex Manes





	I might do this to myself (One Love)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [estel_willow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estel_willow/pseuds/estel_willow) for her amazing Beta'ing work and support as always :)

There’s a saying about how it’s impossible to fit the world in your hands, but Michael Guerin begs to differ because he manages just fine when it comes to Alex Manes. Not that he’ll ever give voice to that because it’s sappy romantic bullshit better suited to Max. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t communicate in other ways because he does, from how he cradles Alex’s face to how he pulls him in as if, by will alone, he can mould their bodies into one and maybe just a touch desperate because Michael knows what it’s like to lose and he’s on a bit of a streak. 

Though, truth be told, he’s been on that same streak since they stepped out of those pods and got swept up in this thing called life. It just never seems to be his time or to work out in his favour, and a lesser man might consider that the world is trying to tell him something but of all the things Michael is he isn’t _that_ self-involved. If anything he’s **too** selfless: frequently putting others first and forgetting his wants and needs until there’s no going back. 

Hell, he spent ten years taking responsibility for murders he didn’t commit just so Isobel (who they thought had done the actual killing) wouldn’t have to face that ugly truth. A lot changed in those ten years: he lost his scholarship, the guy he loved left without giving him so much as a ‘goodbye’ to join the same military his father ascribed to, but worst of all he lost the only connection that truly meant anything but he couldn’t remain linked to Isobel and Max as there was the risk she’d learned the truth. 

Michael isn’t perfect and he knows that, painfully so. He knows he isn’t the best bet for pretty much anything, or anyone. He’s a fairly decent mechanic, can talk circles around the most experienced and educated astrophysicists, and he’s definitely bigger and better than the small town of Roswell but being told that and believing that are two very different things.

He’s never really felt like he’s worth anything and honestly, life hasn’t done anything to dispel this myth but when he’s with Alex he feels like he’s _enough_ or rather more than _enough_. It’s not even about the sex (although admittedly it’s pretty fucking amazing) and that’s a big thing for Michael Guerin to admit as relationships are for other people, people like Max and Isobel, fully functioning adults who don’t rely on acetone and whiskey to get through a day. It numbs everything he doesn’t want to feel and that includes how all-consuming his feelings for Alex are, they wash over him like a tidal wave, and he’s swept away in the current until he’s so far gone that he doesn’t remember what it means to be on land any more.

And he’s okay with that.

Not that it’s any less terrifying. Michael’s spent a lot of his life pushing away connections of depth and merit because he’s a screw-up and he’s bound to disappoint so honestly it’s easier to be the one pushing away before the inevitable happens. And yet he can’t seem to do any of that when it comes to Alex. Alex is the chink in the Guerin armour of arsenic wit and quick draw sarcasm. He wants to, _needs to_ , because he can’t think clearly when he’s with Alex and everything he thought was important fades into the background.

It all fades so far into the background that, eventually, Alex’s voice is the only one he hears as he surfaces from beneath the crushing weight of grief, guilt and whatever the hell else he’s been feeling since Caulfield. It’s almost as though he’s opening his eyes for the first time in weeks, the light burns, and the world takes a full three minutes to swim into focus. 

“Alex?” He says weakly, uncertain, unsure and bewildered.

“Yeah, Guerin, it’s me.”

Blearily, Michael realises that he’s not in his airstream where he was when he passed out but rather he’s pressed up against the side of the Crashdown and in last night’s clothes (or the night before) he isn’t entirely sure. Of course Alex would find him now, looking like ten different shades of utter shit, when he still looks fucking incredible which honestly? Not fair. He registers that Alex isn’t just crouched beside him but he’s also offering Michael a bottle of water and for the briefest of petty moments Michael considers turning it away but he doesn’t. He’s a lot of things but a total asshole is not one of those things more’s the pity: his life would be simpler if he was. 

He takes it with hands that are trembling more than they should and there’s this present and undeniably dull ache in his left one because apparently Max’s healing only worked so much, go figure. It should be more concerning to him that he honestly can’t remember how he got to where he is right now but Michael’s long past giving a fuck. He feels like the walking wounded and every new day is another fresh injury and it shouldn’t hurt to breathe but it does. 

Michael knows without looking that Alex is doing that _thing_ with his eyes, the thing where he looks all concerned and worried. He shouldn’t. Michael doesn’t deserve that. He can’t look up. He _won’t_ look up because he knows if he does then he’s done for, he’ll crumble and all this guise and play pretend of not loving the bones of Alex Manes will come tumbling down like a house of cards. 

So lost was Michael in his own twisted barbed wire thoughts that he didn’t realise that Alex had moved closer and was coaxing him to unfurl and untangle from his web of self-hatred for having had a hand in murdering the family he’d spent so many years longing for. It doesn’t matter how many times people have said to him it wasn’t his fault, it was, if he’d just thought things through then maybe they’d still be alive and maybe they could still be helped. Wasn’t possible now thanks to him. Of all the fucked up things he’s done in his life he’d always held onto the fact that he’d never killed anyone but he can’t say that anymore, their blood is as much on his hands as it is on Jesse Manes’.

That’s what hurts the most.

Jesse Manes didn’t kill them. He did. Michael did. 

“You can’t keep doing this,” Alex murmurs, voice soft and filled with concern. “What happened at Caulfield it wasn’t your-”

Before he has a chance to finish that sentence Michael’s already recoiling like a trapped animal, shoving Alex back and rejecting the security and the comfort he so desperately wants but doesn’t deserve. “Don’t,” he snaps with a shake of his head and a slow-burning fury in the depths of those light caramel eyes. “Don’t you tell me it wasn’t my fault. It _was_.”

“Guerin-”

Michael’s mouth pulls into a tight unimpressed line as that damned surname of his leaves Alex’s lips. He’s very rarely _Michael_ and almost always _Guerin_ like it’s another means of distancing himself and it grates, now more than ever. If he was sober, and more in control of his faculties, Michael would know not to look a gift horse in the mouth but he is neither of those things and so it’s much easier to push people away than it is to let them in. Alex, especially. He’s both his saving grace and his biggest torment. 

Just leave me alone,” he drawls all molasses, thick and alcohol ladened. 

A glance at Alex confirms there’s something the other man wants to say but the small intake of breath indicates that he’s changed his mind, pulled it back in, and for some reason that just makes Michael angrier. “What happened to ‘getting tired of not saying what I wanna say’?” He challenges, well aware that he probably won’t like what comes back, but it’s a familiar play: poke, provoke and push. It also never fails to work and he knows he’s landed a hit by the way Alex’s brows flicker in response. 

“What do you want from me?” Alex challenges, a clear arch in his eyebrow. “I told you I wasn’t running away any longer and that I wanted to talk but then you went and-”

“And?” Michael baits because who better to set off his own traps? No one hates him more than himself, after all.

Unfortunately for Michael, his never-quite-boyfriend has his number and dances around the well-planned ambush with all the ease of a highly trained principal ballerina. “I’m not having this discussion with you right now. I’m going to take you home, get you sobered up, and if you still want to know then I’ll tell you.”

It’s still in him to argue, to fight, bite, claw, and yet one look at the tired almost exhausted look in Alex’s eyes is enough to cause Michael to deflate and he feels it all come rushing out of him. He’s been battling for so long that he forgets that Alex isn’t the enemy and if anything he’s a friendly and he should be glad he’s there and not somewhere else giving up on him like he’d expected.

“Fine.”

It’s one word but means the difference between the world caving in around him in shades of black and blue and expanding to embrace the restorative colours that he’s closed his eyes to because they scare him and, by extension, Alex scares him. Not the way he should but in every way that matters. 

“Okay, good,” Alex replies as he shifts to help Michael to his feet.

It’s not perfect, everything is still very broken, but for the first time in a long time Michael feels as though the gravity tethering him to Earth, and more importantly to New Mexico, is no longer crushing the air out of his lungs.


End file.
